What is a Doctorate? Changing Meanings and Practices in Communication Sciences in Switzerland

In this article, we analyse the organisation of the doctorate in communication sciences in the context of the overall discussion on the changing organisation of doctoral studies in Switzerland. We focus on three tensions which appear central for the field, namely the employment status of doctoral students, the importance of academic vs. professional training and, finally, the organisation of doctoral studies and the possibilities and difficulties in the introduction of a graduate school model. Our results show that in this field the doctorate has to be considered more as an orientation period, where professional and academic training coexist and where there is an extremely high diversity of objectives, activities and organisation forms, both between universities and individual students. This model is surprisingly well adapted to the situation of a field characterised by high internal diversity, rather low research intensity and strong orientation to application. Reforms like the introduction of graduate schools or the reinforcement of academic training have thus to be implemented with some care.